Powerful woman: I see you

To the woman who: Is sick of standing behind her man. I see you. Keeps quiet in meetings. I see you. Stays for the kids. I see you. Thinks she can’t. I see you.
Wants to be bold and own the stage and shrinks as soon as she sees the audience. I see you. To the woman who wants it to be different, who wants more peace and freedom: I see you. The program isn’t yours to live. Untie the shackles of nice, good, silent and small.

Stop promoting yourself

I’m running a workshop for a room full of women who’ve been told and sold they need to get better at promoting themselves and having a more powerful presence if they want to climb that corporate ladder and have more “success”. I get to the part about promoting themselves and the women say this: I feel so uncomfortable promoting myself / I don’t want to appear up myself / I can’t stand the way I see the men in my office do it / What will people think of me going on about how great I am? / Who am I to stand up and say such things? / Can we just skip this part? These comments are coming from the mouths of Programmed Women. They are not coming from these women’s true voices. It’s like a case of very bad lip-synching on a cheap music video.

Let’s dump the notion of nice, easy, difficult and high maintenance

As I continue to navigate the complexities of a new living arrangement, between three people with three different surnames, and behaviour that matches those complexities and certainly isn’t nice, and is pushing my buttons big time and sometimes leaves me in tears when she’s not around, I hear myself say words like this: She’s high maintenance. She’s difficult. She needs to learn to manage her emotions. I started to wonder if those words were even mine. As in, deep down truly my words. They felt heavy and cringe-worthy in a I-can’t-believe-I-just-said-that kind of way. I wondered whether I’d swallowed those cutting words long before I can remember and they seemingly became mine after years of conditioning about how women should behave to make everyone else’s life easier.

A love letter to Amy Taeuber

Dear Amy, I want to say this up front: I think you are smart and brave and filled with an extremely healthy dose of self-respect. We haven’t met before, yet I feel like I know you. Dare I say it, I think we’re super alike. Well, sort of. I used to be a journalist too. And after a stint in commercial radio, before I’d even finished my journalism degree, I landed at job at the same TV station as you. Some of the people I worked with all those years ago still work there now.

How to use your talks to get more clients (and not feel like vomiting)

This is NOT a video about how much money you’re leaving on the table (yucky marketing talk) if you don’t use your talks to sell. This IS a video about how many more people you can help with all the goodness you have to offer, if you can find a way to speak that feels natural and comfortable for you and your audiences. This applies to EVERYONE who speaks, by the way, even if you think you’re not trying to sell anything (you’re wrong). Oh, and this is also a video about one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made that guarantees I lose power and connection with my audiences. I bet you do this too.

How to use speaking to build – or even start – your business

I’ve been reflecting on my first year in business, when I felt like I didn’t really know what I was doing most of the time because everything was brand new. I’d come from the media and then a corporate job, and had never had a business before. One of my strategies was simply to get known by as many people as possible. I knew I needed to put myself out there. I went to lots of networking events and had coffee meetings with all sorts of people. And I did lots of FREE speaking engagements. I did nearly 50 speaking engagements in my first year of business, gained clients from 95% of those talks, and achieved a six-figure income.

How to make your audiences care (and get results)

One of the big problems I see for so many speakers is they don’t know how to make their audiences care about what they’re saying. If they organise the speaking event themselves, they go to enormous effort to get bums on seats. They carefully craft their signature talk, do all the marketing – usually for weeks and weeks, and then, when it comes to the speaking part, they deliver their talk in such a way that it doesn’t pack a punch, build trust, or get new clients.

How to own the room before you even open your mouth to speak

Powerful Speaking isn’t just about what comes out of your mouth, or even how it comes out of your mouth. When you stand up to speak, every idea and belief you have about yourself stands up with you. That isn’t always good news, because most of us have so many stories about who we are and who we’re not, what we should and shouldn’t be doing, and what we’re capable of – or not. Your presence on the stage is informed by all of that, so you need to know what’s standing up with you, ditch the stories that aren’t serving you, and create new ones that see you speaking powerfully and owning the room.

How to shift from fear to power as a speaker

I can’t tell you how many clients say this to me: “Could you please help me get rid of my nerves/stress/fear/anxiety about public speaking.” As someone who quit piano lessons as a kid because I was so terrified by performing at the once-a-year recital, and who never dared to put up her hand at school to answer a question in case I got it wrong and made a fool of myself, I understand the pain. I have a solution to help you move past fear. Yes, a solution. It really does work.

Take your time (or why introverts can be the most powerful speakers)

We’re sitting around a boardroom table. I’m at the head, with two women either side of me. They’ve been nominated for a prestigious award, and I’m helping them prepare for the inevitable media interviews coming the way of the winner. Two have fronted up to the media before. They love talking. A lot.
The other two haven’t. One is the quietest in the room. She tells us she’s been identified as an “Accepting Introvert” (I hadn’t heard of that term, but I knew exactly what it meant, especially in relation to her).

30 things nobody tells you about powerful speaking

There’s all sorts of advice in books, online, and being espoused in public speaking courses everywhere about what you absolutely must know to stand up on a stage and own it. I’ve been speaking publicly since I first sat behind the microphone at 5AD, the radio station that offered me my first journalist and newsreader gig at the ripe old age of 20. I want to share with you what I’ve learned during my 25 years in the game so you can focus on what’s genuinely necessary to become a truly powerful speaker, and ditch everything else.

What you don’t want to talk about (and why powerful speakers do)

The most powerful speakers understand that strength without vulnerability depletes their power. They also get that vulnerability is a strength. So they do what it takes to stay connected with their truth and they speak it. And they keep speaking, holding firm to the message that matters to them, regardless of other people’s opinions, judgements or agendas. Because the message is too important to buy into that. Far out, that message is no less than what gives them their sense of purpose on this planet.

The world needs to hear what you have to say

Most of what I consider my greatest achievements involved walking away. They came with a decision to let go, say goodbye, and walk – sometimes run – in another direction. My greatest achievements have been hard-won. I imagine yours have too. You may not have miraculously recovered from an incurable disease overnight, survived being shot 13 times by a mad man, or climbed Mt Everest. None of that is necessary for being a powerful speaker. You have a message to share and stories filled with wisdom that could make a difference for other people. Your words matter. Your voice matters. Your life, your experiences, and your truth matter.

What happens when you disconnect from your power, and why it’s not worth it

If life imitates art, then I’ve been doing some, well, big, fat imitating. After filming an interview in which I spoke about what I do to stay connected with my power, I had a few days of not doing what it takes to stay connected with my power. Disowning my power (because that’s exactly what I was doing) felt oddly comforting (even though it hurt), as though I could have more control over things that are beyond my control. We do that. We distract ourselves, buy into what’s not our truth, and pretend not to know. We tell ourselves stories that aren’t true, and we believe them.

Come to bed with me: An interview on presence, power and truth

I’m building a temple. It’s called The Story Temple. And in it, you will discover and unleash the most powerful version of your voice – and yourself. The Story Temple is my brand new, 10-month program for women that I’ll be launching in January (when the silly season is over, and the ‘Woah, it’s a new year, and it’s time to get serious – and more powerful’ season begins). The best way to tell you all about it is via my voice talking rather than my voice writing here. So, I sat down with the fabulous Nicola Lipscombe (you know her, right? She’s the magic maker behind Powerful Listening. She’s the best listener).